f lie TJlusQum of fjlodern Art A^ York, N.Y. 10019 Tel. 245-3200 Cable: Modernart L,;e',t 53 street, New October^ I968
ARTHUR DREXLER, DIRECTOR DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN
Arthur Drexler, Director of the Department of Architecture and Design at The
Museum of Modern Art^ joined the staff of the Museum as Curator of Architecture and
Design in 1951 ^^ ^^s been Director of the department since 19^6,
Before joining the Museum, Mr. Drexler was associated with the George Nelson
design studios and was architectural editor of Interiors magazine. He was bom in
New York City in I925 and attended the High School of Music and Art and Cooper Union.
Since 1951^ Mr, Drexler has organized numerous exhibitions for the Museum, among
them: Eight Automobiles (I95I), Ten Automobiles (1953), Japanese House (I95l|- and 1955)^
Textiles U.S.A. (I956), Buildings for Business and Government (I957), Architecture
Worth Saving (I958), Gaudi (I958), 20th Century Design from the Museum Collection
(1958-59), Three Structures by Buckninster Fuller (1959), Visionary Architecture
(i960), The Drawings of Frank Lloyd Wright (I962), Design for Sport (with Mildred
Constantine and Greta Daniel, I962), Le Corbusiert Buildings in Europe and India
(1963), Twentieth Century Engineering (196^4-), Modern Architecture U.S.A. (I965),
Drawings by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (I966), The Architecture of Louis I. Kahn (I966),
Toward a Rational Automobile (I966) and The New City; Architecture and Urban Renewal
(I96T).
As Director of the Department of Architecture and Design, Mr. Drexler is responsible
for the works which are selected for the collection. He is also the director of the
permanent exhibition in the Philip L. Goodwin Galleries for Architecture and Design
on the second floor of the Museum*s East Wing, where about 320 works drawn from the
Museum's Collection of more than l<-,5000 objects are installed. The Museum is the only
place in the world where an international selection of furniture; machine-tooled and
hand-crafted useful objects} architectural models, plans and drawings; textiles;
posters and other examples of graphic design, selected on the basis of quality and
(more) -2- 1^^/^
f hi ^torlcal significance^ Is permanently on view. The collection surveys the major itjles from Art Nouveau, de Stljl, the Bauhaus, to the present day.
Mr. Drexler has written many catalogs for the Museum exhibitions which he has directed. His books published by the Museum Include: Built in U.S.A.; Postwar
Architecture (with Henry-Russell Hitchcock, 1952), The Architecture of Japan (1955), iBtroductlon to 20th Century Design (with Greta Daniel, 1959), and T^;entleth Century
Engineering (I961f). He has also written Mies van der Rohe, published by George
Brazlller in I96O, The Drawings of Frank Lloyd Wright published by Horizon Press in
1962 and the Introduction to the I958 Rinascente book, 11 Museo d'Arte Modema dl New York. as well as articles in such periodicals as Harpers magazine. Architectural Record,
Progressive Architecture, Arts and Architecture and Interiors.
In addition to his duties at the Museum, Mr. Drexler has lectured at New York
University, Yale University, Harvard University, Pratt Institute and the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. In \.^(h, he participated in the Governor*s Conference on
Good Design in Sacramento, California, and on several occasions has been a speaker at the International Design Conference in Aspen, Colorado. Mr, Drexler is Chairman of
the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, established
in 1967 by The Museum of Modem Art in collaboration with Cornell University.
Photographs and additional information available from Elizabeth Shaw, Director, Department of Public Information, The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53 Street,